[arcturus17]

> it has led to compulsive browsing behavior with severely negative long-term consequences for my life

If I can offer practical advice that has worked for me in pulling me back from bad browsing habits:

1. Meditate ~10min every morning

2. Start a reading habit, even if it's modest (start with 10 pages a day)

3. Create physical barriers between you and devices:

3.1. Do not sleep with a device in the room (if you use it as an alarm clock buy an analog one)

3.2. Physically remove non-indispensable devices (TV, console, any extra screens) from around you, if only temporarily (put them in storage, give them to a friend for keeping)

4. Write a to-do list with objectives for the next day in the evenings, then revise it in the mornings after waking up

5. Pick up some exercise, preferrably with a social obligation (ie, an instructor, a group). The latter may be important because as an experienced weightlifter I can say that it's way too easy to do solo sessions where you're constantly slacking around and looking at your phone.

6. Quit other vices (eg, drinking) temporarily

Many of these have nothing to do with browsing, but that's precisely what does it for me. Artificially limiting browsing (by using apps, timeboxing, etc.) does not work at all for me and I need to work on adjacent goals to build my chemistry back up.

[throwaway4aday]

A really important addition there is to make sure you get your sleep routine in order. If you don't sleep well then sticking to any of the other habits is going to be incredibly hard. Decide on a sleep schedule that gives you between 7 and 8 hours in bed with no distractions, lights out. Even if you can't fall asleep easily just disciplining yourself to stick to this schedule will help. I can't stress how important it is to not use your phone in bed, no books either. If you're going to read before bed then do it before your scheduled bed time and make sure you have a reminder set to tell you when you need to drop what you're doing and go to bed. Set an alarm to wake yourself up and try to stick to it even if you didn't get much sleep. You'll be tired but that should make it easier to fall asleep the next night. If you can get this routine locked in then the rest of the habits will be much easier to stick to.

[Version467]

Good sleep hygiene really is a prerequisite for this stuff.

I would recommend removing the phone from the bedroom entirely. If you want to use your phones alarm clock, make sure that no other notifications can come through during your scheduled sleep time and put it on the other side of the room (this also forces you to stand up in the morning because you can't turn off your alarm otherwise).

You say 'no books either', and I agree with it, a bedtime routine works best if the bed is only used for sleeping, but I had great success with first replacing my phone with my ereader and allowing myself to read as much as I want. And then later on I removed the ereader. That was much easier than just removing the phone at once.